I think we all grew up like this,
half expecting someone to call us
and tell us that something horrible
has happened or been done to our mother.
I did feel that something was about to happen
but not this.
She had even ironically predicted that, you know:
"What are they going to do?
"Take a contract out on my life?"
So, subconsciously she knew.
*The Daphne Project*
*Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in Malta on 16 October 2017*
*Matthew was the first to arrive at the scene of the explosion*
She told me: "I'm going out to the bank now."
She walked out of the house,
then I heard an explosion
and I knew it was a car bomb straight away.
I saw the logo of Peugeot and at that moment I thought: "Shit!"
There was a huge ball of fire,
it looked like, I don't know, the fire of hell.
It was just awful. The sound of the horn blaring,
there were body parts all over the ground.
The feeling of frustration was so overwhelming
at being able to do nothing.
Apart from my mother being taken away
I also felt like my country had been taken away.
It was the same feeling that the world had collapsed,
that no one was safe anymore.
It really is an assassination to match
the scale of the crimes
on which she was reporting.
The blog was set up at the start of 2008.
If she got a story, she would go for it,
you know, and no holds barred.
She always claimed that she didn’t take prisoners,
you know, she shot to kill.
It was really unbelievable what she uncovered.
The level of criminality was,
frankly, frightening.
Our government was very effective at creating this smoke screen,
that Malta is a normal country,
it’s liberal, we have gay rights,
but that was just a facade.
She was working on corruption
at the highest levels of government.
It was everything from the top to the bottom.
When you have a mind like that
you can’t never turn it off.
She was fighting to hold Malta
and Maltese society to a higher standard,
to really get people in the country to expect more,
expect more of their government,
expect more of their politicians,
to respect their country more.
We met, I believe, in late summer 1983.
It was fun, I think, we used to go swimming together
and all sorts of things.
She started writing after the third child was born,
after Paul was born in 1988.
My mother was ...
She was completely unlike anyone I’ve ever met.
She was extremely intelligent,
had the force and personality
of 100 people packed into one.
She was also a very good mother.
Not strict with them but very in control
and knew exactly what was happening
and took no nonsense from them.
She's someone, I suppose like a lot of mothers,
who was always there for us.
She was a very strong, principled figure.
She didn’t really fit into this Maltese stereotype
of a loud, obnoxious personality.
She was an observer and it was almost like
she looked at Maltese society from the outside.
Journalism was her life in the sense that she lived it.
For her it was an extension of her personality.
Her role as an investigative journalist only started
when the Labour party was in government.
She used to receive extremely sensitive information
on a daily basis about what was happening in government.
She was the only person investigating anything
of note in Malta.
That everyone else was just reporting
the results of her investigations.
There were points when we worried for her safety, for sure,
because we knew, again, that in Malta
that kind of journalism would be seen as a personal attack.
She fought the Labour party to keep it out of government
and it’s important to remember
that it wasn't an equal battle.
This was a journalist versus the state,
versus a political party.
Who on earth would have an interest
in reporting me to the police
and asking for my arrest
because of an article about the leader of the opposition,
if not the leader of the opposition himself
or his political party?
I think it galvanised her, actually,
and she wrote about this:
that they more they attack her, the stronger she gets.
She had a thick skin, you know, but still very vulnerable.
What changed, probably, is the scale of corruption
in the country and her reporting changed with it.
Every person in power was compromised beyond belief.
I remember waking up every morning
with a feeling of absolute dread,
thinking what on earth is going to happen next?
*Six days before her death, Daphne was being
interviewed by a researcher*
So, would you say it's a climate of fear?
Totally.
And doing journalism in a climate of fear is ...
It's become very, very hard.
My biggest concern is
because people see what's happened to me,
they don't want to do it.
People are afraid of consequences.
They tried framing, they tried arresting her,
they tried suing her.
They couldn't stop her
using any of those means,
so they just killed her.
I think they were adamant on stopping her
somehow or other but I didn’t know
to what extent this would go.
After our mother was killed we had no time to grieve,
to think about our mother,
to try to remember her.
All the requests, you know: "Will you endorse this reward?
"Give us this evidence.
"Will you look through the house?
"Will you look for electronics?"
It was just one battle after another.
*On 4 December 2017, three men were arrested
and charged with Daphne's murder*
*The government is offering a €1m reward
for information related to who may
have commissioned the bomb*
None of us got any sense of satisfaction
when they were arrested
because they didn’t mean anything to us.
It was almost like the bomb had been arrested,
they were just the tool used by the person
with the real motive to kill our mother.
And then there is the formal problem
of the prime minister of Malta talks about "we".
"We are investigating."
"We are going to find the masterminds."
What if someone linked to him is the mastermind?
I think, besides the family,
the person who really wants most
this issue to be settled, is myself.
There is no independent institution in between
the citizen and the government right now in Malta.
Her assassination became possible for that reason.
It is bizarre to think that you have a journalist publishing
evidence of really serious criminal activity there,
everyone in the country and beyond is reading it,
and the institutions that are meant
to do something with it just don’t do anything.
She was completely let down.
If all the people who had committed the crimes
that my mother reported on had faced justice,
then this would not have happened.
I hope that one day we’ll be able to return
to a country we recognise.
It’s impossible for us to share a tiny island
with the people who commissioned the assassination
of our mother and the people who are celebrating it.
*Malta's PM, Joseph Muscat, made the following statement
in response to the investigation:
The murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia
shocked and outraged me.
Allegations of organised threats or harrassment
against Daphne Caruana Galizia or her family
are wholly false.
This murder does not reflect on the Maltese people
who enjoy a liberal, open and democratic society.
Her murder is being investigated vigorously
with the help of international enforcement agencies.
The police will have whatever resources they need
to pursue and prosecute those responsible.*